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In his new little book on the atonement and resurrection, The Sign and the Sacrifice, Rowen Williams explains five ways in which the reality of the resurrection changes the lives of believers. The entire chapter is a goldmine of insights, but I want to hit on one point that I believe is incredibly important: if the resurrection is true, our prayer life changes. Specifically, if Christ has risen and has already entered into the holy place, face to face with Father, this changes fundamentally the way we approach God in prayer.

Rowen Williams explains:

It’s far too easy to fall into the way of thinking of prayer as a sort of “storming” of heaven, a campaign: somehow we’ve got to get enough petitions together to make God change his mind; or we’ve really got to exert a bit of pressure on God to make him do what we want; or even, God’s a very long way off and we’ve got to make a lot of noise to attract his attention; and all the various other distortions of prayer that are around. But if we are being introduced into a new world, the place where Jesus is, then prayer is most deeply “allowing God to happen in us”; the Spirit bringing Christ alive in us, being int he place where Christ is real, with the Spirit coming into us to bring Christ alive in our own hearts (p 92-93)

In other words, if Christ is already at the Father’s side, prayer is principally not working our way up to God to gain his favor. It is allowing the reality of Christ happen within us in the power of the Spirit. It is being joined to Christ in his face-to-face relationship with the Father. It is being united with Christ by the Spirit in his resurrection reality.

This turns prayer from a work to reception. It is receiving Christ’s accomplished relationship with the Father and practicing that reality.

Williams continues by explaining that because of the resurrection, prayer becomes a Trinitarian reality: we come to the Father through the work of Christ in the power of the Spirit. We do not come with our own accomplishments, but

I come before God allowing the Holy Spirit to put Christ’s words in my mouth, to let my breath by breathed anew by the Spirit, carrying the words of Christ, and just let the Trinity be where I am when I pray (p 94)

If the resurrection is a reality, prayer is our inclusion through Jesus in the community of the Triune God. We belong, as Williams says, “in God’s eternity” (p 94). What a joy!